Research Expeditions

Research Expeditions

At any one time scientists and technicians from the UK marine community can be at sea on numerous vessels. This page provides information on the current research expeditions being undertaken by our two Royal Research Ships Discovery and James Cook. Here you can discover where our ships are and what they are aiming to achieve.

Updates from the ships’ Plans of Intended Movement (PIM)

RRS Discovery

RRS James Cook

Vessel: Discovery

DTG: 211118 08:00

Zone: Z -3

Exped: DY095

Subj: PIM

Pos: 52 38S 68 05W (Vessel entering Magellan Straits)

Co: 245

Spd: 12kts

WX: WNW F6/7. Few clouds and clear. Mod seas

Status: On passage to Punta Arenas

Intentions: ETA Pilot Possession Bay 12:00 Wed 21-NOV-11

ETA Punta Arenas 21:00 21-NOV-18

Vessel: James Cook

Cruise: JC174

DTG: 211118 0800

Time Zone: UTC-4

Position: 26° 33'N 076° 56'W

Course: N/A

Speed: 0kts

Wind: NW 5kts

Sea: Slight sea and low swell

Status: On station for boat transfer with FV Tuna.

Intentions: Complete transfer. Lander recoveries

Ships’ positions

This map shows the positions of the NOC operated vessels RRS Discovery and RRS James Cook. While every effort is made to keep this map up to date sometimes position updates are not possible.

RRS James Cook

The RAPID 26N project makes observations of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in collaboration with colleagues from University of Miami and NOAA in the USA.

The UK component of this project is an array of moorings in the subtropical Atlantic that make measurements of temperature, salinity, currents, and bottom pressure. From these we are able to calculate the transport of mass, heat and freshwater associated with the overturning circulation. Variability of these transports have important climate impacts in the North Atlantic, the surrounding regions and globally.

Additionally there are sensors to measure biogeochemical transports, in particular carbon, for the ABC project. There are three main sub-arrays: the first is on the western boundary close to the Bahamas, the second is over the mid-Atlantic Ridge and the third is on the Eastern boundary close to the Canary Islands.These moorings are scheduled to be serviced once every 18 months.

Formed 72 million years ago and drowned 22 million years ago, the Rio Grande Rise is a lost land of dinosaurs, ravines and plateaus the size of Wales. Cruise DY094 will sail from Santos, Brazil, on the 19th of October with a scientific team from the National Oceanography Centre, British Geological Survey, University of Edinburgh and the University of Sao Paulo. Deploying the autonomous underwater vehicle, Autosub6000, the team will map the Rio Grande Rise in extraordinary detail. With the robotic underwater vehicle HyBIS, they will explore and photograph features on the seafloor including a huge rift over 1000m deep, mysterious sinkholes and the ancient remains of beaches long since drowned under hundreds of metres of water.

The Rio Grande Rise lies 1400 km east of Brazil, in the South Atlantic. Surrounded by water over 3000m deep, the relatively shallow Rio Grande Rise is of interest for seafloor mineral deposits rich in iron, manganese and other metals that are important to modern society. Two of these in particular are critical to any future effort to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons: cobalt and tellurium. Cobalt is essential in rechargeable batteries that are needed if we are to move to electric vehicles. Tellurium is essential for high-efficiency solar-electric power generation.

Our research aims to enhance understanding of the processes controlling the formation and composition of deep-ocean mineral deposits. By deploying autonomous and robotic underwater vehicles, instrument moorings, and novel sampling methodologies, we will test hypotheses for the environmental controls on metal concentration and deposit richness at a regional to local scale.

Cruise DY094 is jointly funded by the UK and Brazil, and is purely a scientific expedition of discovery.